Edward Bartolo <edbarx@???> writes:
> As the backend uses ifup and ifdown, and these leak memory, I should
> think, it makes sense to try to understand why they leak, and if
> possible, patch their code.
>
> Should I try to find out what is the cause of memory leaks in
> ifupdown?

Even assuming that both indeed leaked memory (How did you determine
this?), this wouldn't matter very much because they're just
short-running commands: A program is said to 'leak' memory when it loses
track of some memory it allocated (from the heap) because the last
pointer pointing to it is overwritten without the memory being returned
to the heap first. After a process existed, its address space is torn
down and any real memory allocated by the kernel to cover for some used
virtual memory will be reclaimed.